Saco, California
Saco | |
|---|---|
railway siding | |
  Saco Location in California  Saco Saco (the United States) | |
| Coordinates: 35°26′40″N 119°05′32″W / 35.44444°N 119.09222°WCoordinates: 35°26′40″N 119°05′32″W / 35.44444°N 119.09222°W ⧼validator-fatal-error⧽ | |
| Country | United States |
| State | California |
| County | Kern County |
| Elevation | 453 ft (138 m) |
Saco (Spanish for "Sack") is a railway siding in Kern County, California.[1] It is located on the Southern Pacific Railroad 7 miles (11 km) northwest of Bakersfield,[2] at an elevation of 453 feet (138 m).[1]
Solomon Jewett was the son of Solomon Wright Jewett and with his brother Philo D. Jewett was a sheep farmer and banker in Kern County, California.[3] He was born in Weybridge, Vermont on 1835-03-13.[3]
His father Solomon W. Jewett had been a sheep famer and dealer in Weybridge, who travelled to Europe to import sheep to the United States.[4]
He entered the sheep farming industry at age 8, when he drove a flock of sheep from Vermont to Albany, New York.[3] After various career changes as a schoolteacher in Racine, Wisconsin, a ferryboat operator on the Missouri River in Nebraska in 1858, and an aborted joruney to Pike's Peak in 1859, he arrived in the San Joaquin valley in 1860 via Nevada.[3]
He began raising sheep in Kern county soon thereafter, on the Tejon ranch, and then went into partnership with his brother Philo D. Jewett in the 40,000 acres (16,000 ha) Rio Bravo ranch north of Kern, California.[3][5] In 1865 they were growing 130 acres (53 ha) of cotton there, sending it to Oakland for ginning.[6]
They sold their flocks and land in 1874 to the Kern County Wool Growers' Association, to move to land that they had bought to the north of Bakersfield, at what became named Jewett's Lane.[3][5] The Association sold Rio Bravo on to Louis C. Olcese and John Barker,[5] and after operating as a sheep ranch into the 20th century it was was later the home of Merle Haggard.[6][5]
In 1899 Solomon sold the sheep flock and switched to cattle farming.[3] He had in the meantime diversified into alfalfa farming, at three plots: one 640 acres (260 ha) at the Beardsley Canal, one 640 acres (260 ha) one at the McCaffery Canal, and one 320 acres (130 ha) one at the Emory ditch.[3]
He built the first store in Bakersfield.[3]
He was founding co-president of the Kern Valley Bank, which opened in 1874 on the corner of 18th Street and Chester Avenue in Bakersfield.[3]
He also founded the Buena Vista Oil Company, later named Jewett & Blodgett, to drill for oil in the 1870s and to secure rights of way for railroads to be laid to the oil field in McKittrick to Maricopa.[3]
The Jewetta post office on the Southern Pacific Railroad 7 miles (11 km) northwest of Bakersfield operated from 1893 to 1903, with a closure during 1896 to 1898.[2] It was named after Solomon and Philo D. Jewett.[2]
In 1872 he was chairman of the county board of supervisors in Bakersfield, when the county seat moved there.[3]
He died in Bakersfield, California on 1905-12-06.[3]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Saco, California
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Durham 1998, p. 1110.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 Morgan 1914, p. 1293.
- ↑ Swift 1859, pp. 102–103.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Brewer 2001, p. 18.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Littlefield 2020, p. 55.
Sources[edit]
- Morgan, Wallace Melvin (1914). History of Kern County, California. Dalcassian Publishing Company. Search this book on
- Swift, Samuel (1859). "History of Addison County, Vermont". History of the Town of Middlebury. Syracuse: D. Mason & Company. Search this book on
- Littlefield, Douglas R. (2020). Ruling the Waters: California’s Kern River, the Environment, and the Making of Western Water Law. The Environment in Modern North America. 4. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806166964. Search this book on
- Brewer, Chris; Kern County Museum (2001). Historic Kern County: An Illustrated History of Bakersfield and Kern County. HPN Books. ISBN 9781893619142. Search this book on
- Durham, David L. (1998). California's Geographic Names: A Gazetteer of Historic and Modern Names of the State. Clovis, Calif.: Word Dancer Press. p. 1100. ISBN 1-884995-14-4. Search this book on
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